Refuting the Sethite view (again)

Anytime I post a video or blog about The Genesis Six Experimentand the activity of the angels who mated with woman and produced Nephilim offspring, inevitably those who hold to the Sethite view come out of the woodwork to insult and try to “expose” me as some kind of lying heretic (or worse) out to “deceive the masses” with my (allegedly) “pornographic view” of Scripture. SMH It never ends.

One recent comment I received reflects the usual level of poor scholarship they base their opinions on. Someone named “Wayne” posted:

“First, a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q417) contains the earliest-known reference to the interpretation that “the sons of God” in Gen 6.1-4 are the “children of Seth,” and it condemns them for this rebellion against God. This interpretation says that these “sons of God” were Seth’s descendants who first began to “invoke the name of the lord“ (Gen 4.25-26), thus living for God, but they later rebelled against him by taking unbelieving, unrighteous daughters of Cain as their wives.

Furthermore, this suggestion of created angels being God’s Sons and therefore our “Brothers in God” is NEVER once mentioned in either the Masoretic Texts (OT) nor the Textus Receptus (NT) as well. Likewise, this suggestion generates serious theological concerns respective to Jesus’ work of redemption and the sanctification of subsequent believers. The “Sons of God” are created angels comes from published works such as Josephus; Zohar Bereishis 25a – the book of Zohar is rooted in the Jewish Kabbalah (the Jewish religious pagan sister to Hinduism – YOGA); Mishneh Torah – Yesodei Emunah 2:7; Igeret HaTeshuva ch. 4; Apocrypha Book of Enoch; Apocrypha Book of Jubilees; the Dead Sea Scrolls Apocrypha account of Genisis; and The Alexandrian Septuagint (LXX); et. al.

This provided me with the perfect example to respond to with the following…

“The fragment known as 4Q417 is the earliest known reference to the ‘children of Seth’, in which ‘God has condemned the children of Seth for their rebellion against God. Other references to the children of Seth rebelling against God and fornicating with daughters of Cain are found in MUCH LATER SCRIPTS, such as those of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (late 1st Century), Augustine of Hippo (late 4th Century), Julius Africanus (mid 3rd Century) and the letters attributed to St. Clement (much later).” [emphasis and parenthetical added by me]

And that just supports my position all the more. Although, I do find it quite humorous that you should latch onto an out of context, and misquoted snippet from an obscure poetic fragment in the Dead Sea Scrolls collection, while conveniently ignoring the fact that numerous copies of the book of Enoch were also found, which totally obliterates your exceptionally ignorant thesis. Eleven Aramaic-language fragments of the Book of Enoch were found in cave 4 of Qumran alone. And cave 1 contained fragments of it in Hebrew. See also the Book of Giants. At least six and as many as eleven copies of this book were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls collections. These along with the testimony of numerous other ancient authors, to include the highly respected 1st century Jewish historian Josephus are in unanimous agreement against the ridiculously unsupported Sethite view, all believing in and writing about the angelic view of the sons of God.

FOR MORE ON DEBUNKING THE SETHITE VIEW, PLEASE SEE:

Third, you lack understanding of Gen. 4:25, 26. What is being said there is not a good thing. They were PROFANING the name of Lord, NOT “living for God.” This is based on the meaning of the Hebrew word translated as “began” in Gen. 4:26 [see; http://biblehub.com/hebrew/2490.htm]. Several ancient Bible commentaries explain this. For instance, in Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible we read:

“The Jews give a very different sense of these words; the Targum of Onkelos is,”then in his days the children of men ceased from praying in the name of the Lord;”and the Targum of Jonathan is,”this was the age, in the days of which they began to err, and they made themselves idols, and surnamed their idols by the name of the Word of the Lord;”with which agrees the note of Jarchi,”then they began to call the names of men, and the names of herbs, by the name of the blessed God, to make idols of them:”and some of them say, particularly Maimonides (r), that Enos himself erred, and fell into idolatry, and was the first inventor of images, by the mediation of which men prayed to God:”

Although, Gill goes on to state he does not believe what was said in those ancient commentaries to be true, it was the common view of the Jews (who likely knew their own Scriptures better than western commentators writing many centuries later). The Targums likewise agree with the ancient (Torah contemporary) Book of Jasher, which goes into a lot more detail. This profaning in the days of Enosh led to a localized pre-Flood flood that destroyed many for their evil deeds.

Jasher 2:

1 And it was in the hundred and thirtieth year of the life of Adam upon the earth, that he again knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare a son in his likeness and in his image, and she called his name Seth, saying, Because God has appointed me another seed in the place of Abel, for Cain has slain him.

2 And Seth lived one hundred and five years, and he begat a son; and Seth called the name of his son Enosh, saying, Because in that time the sons of men began to multiply, and to afflict their souls and hearts by transgressing and rebelling against God.

3 And it was in the days of Enosh that the sons of men continued to rebel and transgress against God, to increase the anger of the Lord against the sons of men.

4 And the sons of men went and they served other gods, and they forgot the Lord who had created them in the earth: and in those days the sons of men made images of brass and iron, wood and stone, and they bowed down and served them.

5 And every man made his god and they bowed down to them, and the sons of men forsook the Lord all the days of Enosh and his children; and the anger of the Lord was kindled on account of their works and abominations which they did in the earth.

6 And the Lord caused the waters of the river Gihon to overwhelm them, and he destroyed and consumed them, and he destroyed the third part of the earth, and notwithstanding this, the sons of men did not turn from their evil ways, and their hands were yet extended to do evil in the sight of the Lord.

Now, other ancient texts (such as the Book of Adam and Eve) do talk about Seth’s offspring engaging in fornication and other sins with the daughters of Cain, but this is NOT what Genesis 6 is talking about.

Fourth, due to your unsupported and biased pre-conceived notions, you are blind to what the Mesoretic Texts and the Textus Receptus has to say, which is clearly conveyed to us in the English of both the OT and NT. Your view utterly FAILS to explain the giants of the OT (as described in Numbers 13:27-33 and Amos 2:9 for example) and the “angels that sinned” and are “bound in chains of darkness” (in Tartarus) as described by both Peter and Jude in the NT.

In summary, the Sethite view is totally unsupported. What little “proof” that is provided by my opponent here is very selectively taken from a mangled and distorted, out of context fragment of an obscure poetic text found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, while ignoring the well established, written testimony of books like Enoch and the Book of Giants which were likewise found at Qumran. Beyond that, all these people have is the opinions of those writing well after 100 AD, who chose to remain willfully ignorant of the textual facts and the well established historical and archaeological evidence of giants in the ancient world, who were initially the offspring of the “angels that sinned,” which were then bound in chains, locked away in the lowest prison of Hades.

Rob Skiba

UPDATED RESPONSES:

“Wayne” responded to the above with:

The following list shows nine other texts where non-angelic interpretations are held: While Philo himself calls these ‘sons of God’ angels in one place, he later called them ‘good and excellent men’ Q. Gen. 1.92). Moreover the Targums and the Rabbinic literature are unanimous in viewing the ‘sons of God’ as human beings. Targum Onkelos on Genesis 6:2 and 4 reads ‘sons of princes’ (or great men, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan has the same. Targum Neofiti has ‘sons of the Judges’ in both verses. Tosefta, Sotah 3: 9a interprets ‘sons of God’ as men of the generation of the flood. In the Midrash Rabbah, they are understood as ‘sons of judges’ and as leaders (Gen. R. 26.5 on Gn. 6:2, quoting Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai, c. AD 140), or as the generation of men at the time of the flood. Symmachus translates Genesis 6:2 as ‘the sons of the rulers.’ Although this material is admittedly somewhat later than 1 Enoch and Jubilees, which are both to be dated in the second century BC, the citations from Philo and the Targums are certainly not irrelevant for New Testament exegesis—indeed, the Rabbinic material generally represents a stream of Jewish tradition which is certainly relevant as a background for New Testament studies. And the citations in this second group are diverse and frequent enough to give strong indication of the existence of a ‘non-angelic’ view of the ‘sons of God’ in Judaism, especially more orthodox Judaism, before or during the time of the New Testament (Wayne Grudem, 1 Peter, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, IVP, 1988, pp 211,212). Therefore the angel view was not the only position held in the ancient world.

To which I responded:

The Targum sources you quote only substantiate what I have said all along, that PRIOR TO the mid 2nd Century AD, it was the UNANIMOUS view of the ancients that Genesis 6 spoke about ANGELS. I care not what foolish “Jewish fables” were spun after that time period.

And no… they are not “somewhat later” they are SUBSTANTIALLY LATER – in some cases by thousands of years. When you say that 1 Enoch and Jubilees are “dated in the second century BC” you are only talking about COPIES thereof. Clearly 1 Enoch and Jasher were know at the time of Moses and Joshua (who even cites Jasher by name), while Jubilees indeed doesn’t show up until about 200 BC – still, all three long predate your Targums. So the idea that the “existence of a ‘non-angelic’ view of the ‘sons of God’ in Judaism, especially more orthodox Judaism, before or during the time of the New Testament” is patently absurd.

And Philo? OK. Yeah… let’s quote him shall we? Writing at some point prior to 50 AD (at the same time as the Apostles), the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, Philo wrote:

When they had received these orders, they went forth to spy out the land, being conducted on their way by the whole multitude who feared lest they might be taken prisoners and so be put to death, and lest in that way two great evils might happen to them, namely, the slaughter of the men who were the eye of each tribe, and also ignorance of what was being done by their enemies who were plotting against them, the knowledge of which was most desirable. So, taking with them scouts to examine the road and guides to show them the way, they accompanied them at their first setting out. And when they approached the borders of the country they ran up to the highest mountain of all those in that district, and from thence they surveyed the land, part of which was an extensive champaign district, fertile in barley, and wheat, and herbage; and the mountain region was not less productive of vines, and all kinds of other trees, and rich in every kind of timber, full of dense thickets, and girdled by rivers and fountains so as to be abundantly well watered, so that even from the foot of the mountain district to the highest summit of the hills themselves, the whole region was covered closely with a net-work of shady trees, and more especially the lower ridges, and the deep valleys and glens. They also surveyed all the strongest cities, looking upon them in two points of view; first, with reference to their advantages of situation, and also to the strength of their fortification; also, when they inquired respecting the inhabitants, they saw that they were very numerous indeed, and GIANTS OF EXCEEDING TALLNESS AND ABSOLUTELY GIGANTIC BODIES, both as to their magnitude and their strength.

– Philo On The Life of Moses, 1, Chapter XLI

On what principle it was that giants were BORN OF ANGELS AND WOMEN? (Gen. 6:4). The poets call those men who were born out of the earth giants, that is to say, sons of the Earth {the Greek name Gigas is said to be derived from geμ and gennaoμ, “to bring forth.”} But Moses here uses this appellation improperly, and he uses it too very often merely to denote the vast personal size of the principal men, equal to that of Hajk {hajk is an addition of the Armenian translator; it is the name of a fabulous patriarch of the Armenian nation} or Hercules. But he relates that these giants were sprung from a combined procreation of two natures, NAMELY, FROM ANGELS AND MORTAL WOMEN; for the substance of angels is spiritual; but it occurs every now and then that on emergencies occurring they have imitated the appearance of men, and transformed themselves so as to assume the human shape; AS THEY DID ON THIS OCCASION, when forming connexions with women FOR THE PRODUCTION OF GIANTS. But if the children turn out imitators of the wickedness of their mothers, departing from the virtue of their fathers, let them depart, according to the determination of the will of a depraved race, and because of their proud contempt for the supreme Deity, and so be condemned as guilty of voluntary and deliberate wickedness. But SOMETIMES MOSES STYLES THE ANGELS THE SONS OF GOD, inasmuch as they were not produced by any mortal, but are incorporeal, as being spirits destitute of any body; or rather that exhorter and teacher of virtue, namely Moses, calls those men who are very excellent and endowed with great virtue the sons of God; and the wicked and depraved men he calls bodies, or flesh.

– Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis, Book 1, Point # 92

Or how about Peter’s disciple Clement (keeping in mind that Peter clearly understood what you are denying)? Clement is said to have been a disciple of Peter, who lived at the close of the first century. The following is attributed to his writings…

From the Clementine Homilies:

Chapter XIII.-The Fall of the Angels.“But when, having assumed these forms, they convicted as covetous those who stole them, and changed themselves into the nature of men, in order that, living holily, and showing the possibility of so living, they might subject the ungrateful to punishment, yet having become in all respects men, they also partook of human lust, and being brought tinder its subjection they fell into cohabitation with women;14 and being involved with them, and sunk in defilement and altogether emptied of their first power, were unable to turn back to the first purity of their proper nature, their members turned away from their fiery substance:15 for the fire itself, being extinguished by the weight of lust, and changed into flesh, they trode the impious path downward. For they themselves, being fettered with the bonds of flesh, were constrained and strongly bound; wherefore they have no more been able to ascend into the heavens.

Chapter XV.-The Giants.“But from their unhallowed intercourse spurious men sprang, ranch greater in stature than ordinary men, whom they afterwards called GIANTS; not those dragon-footed giants who waged war against God, as those blasphemous myths of the Greeks do sing, but wild in manners, and greater than men in size, inasmuch as THEY WERE SPRUNG OF ANGELS; yet less than angels, as they were born of women. Therefore God, knowing that they were barbarized to brutality, and that the world was not sufficient to satisfy them (for it was created according to the proportion of men and human use), that they might not through want of food turn, contrary to nature, to the eating of animals, and yet seem to be blameless, as having ventured upon this through necessity, the Almighty God rained manna upon them, suited to their various tastes; and they enjoyed all that they would. But they, on account of their bastard nature, not being pleased with purity of food, longed only after the taste of blood. Wherefore they first tasted flesh.

Chapter XVIII.-The Law to the Survivors.“Since, therefore, the souls of the deceased giants were greater than human souls, inasmuch as they also excelled their bodies, they, as being a new race, were called also by a new name. And to those who survived in the world a law was prescribed of God through an angel, how they should live. For being BASTARDS IN RACE, OF THE FIRE OF ANGELS and the blood of women, and therefore liable to desire a certain race of their own, they were anticipated by a certain righteous law.

“All things therefore being completed which are in heaven, and in earth, and in the waters, and the human race also having multiplied, in the eighth generation, righteous men, who HAD LIVED THE LIFE OF ANGELS, being allured by the beauty of women, fell into promiscuous and illicit connections with these; and thenceforth acting in all things without discretion, and disorderly, they changed the state of human affairs and the divinely prescribed order of life, so that either by persuasion or force they compelled all men to sin against God their Creator. In the ninth generation are born THE GIANTS, so called from of old, not dragon-footed, as the fables of the Greeks relate, but MEN OF IMMENSE BODIES, whose bones, of ENORMOUS SIZE, are still shown in some places for confirmation. But against these the righteous providence of God brought a flood upon the world, that the earth might be purified from their pollution, and every place might be turned into a sea by the destruction of the wicked. Yet there was then found one righteous man, by name Noah, who, being delivered in an ark with his three sons and their wives, became the colonizer of the world after the subsiding of the waters, with those animals and seeds which he had shut up with him.”

– Recognitions of Clement, Book 1, Chapter XXIX, The Giants: The Flood

Josephus likewise confirms the existence of the GIANT BONES which still testified in his day (late 1st Century) of the FACT that angels indeed copulated with women to produce giants (something incest can certainly NEVER do):

For MANY ANGELS OF GOD accompanied with women, and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence they had in their own strength; for the tradition is, that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call GIANTS.

– Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 1, Chapter 3

For which reason they removed their camp to Hebron; and when they had taken it, they slew all the inhabitants. There were till then left the RACE OF GIANTS, WHO HAD BODIES SO LARGE, AND COUNTENANCES SO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT FROM OTHER MEN, that they were surprising to the sight, and terrible to the hearing. The bones of these men are still shown to this very day, unlike to any credible relations of other men.

– Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 5, Chapter 2.3

Face it:

1) You have ZERO supporting evidence prior to the mid 2nd Century AD.
2) You are ignoring a MOUNTAIN of textual evidence (only a tiny fraction of which I have quoted in response to you) supporting the angelic view.
3) You have NO logical explanation for the WELL DOCUMENTED accounts of giants throughout multiple cultures in the ancient world. And to deny they existed only proves one to be willfully ignorant at best and/or blatantly dishonest (and possibly insane) at worst.
4) You are calling both Peter and Jude liars. For both knew quite well the story of the “angels that sinned” and were thus punished and put into “everlasting chains of darkness” in the prison known as Tartarus. This cannot be applied to Satan’s 1/3. They are not chained up in prison. They are the “principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places” Paul said we are at war with.

Please give this up while you are 50 miles behind the starting line. You simply cannot win this debate. The textual, historical, socialogical and archaeological evidence is OVERWHELMINGLY against your view.

10 Comments

My comment is not about Seth but volume, mass and strength. I am a math teacher and am fond of asking,”If two men had the same proportions but one was twice as tall, how much more would he weigh?” …I think a scaled up Arnold could include his weight and strength, both based upon volume – LxWxH – which are even more amazing than height!

Sometimes, ok all times. When I hear stuff like this in my daily travels. I always think. “ok pal let me go get my buddy Rob” who can fluently speak what I’m thinking to these people about these things because after about 15 minutes I get to the point of “you sir are a tool I’m done!” as to where Rob can keep throwing down more rebuttal when I would be lacing the boots to put one up their backside. I pray for the patience and understanding that brother Rob has. Good stuff Rob, keep it up!

” But SOMETIMES MOSES STYLES THE ANGELS THE SONS OF GOD” but so by that definition that would include Adam and EVE and all children still in the forms that Adam was created like…. but we have de – evolved since then and we ” surely died” ( started to decay ) that day not even counting all what the changes were to us from the pre flood conditions and environment being changed… like more pleasure means more pressure on the pituitary would make everything bigger and so would head shaping could and would also keep more pressure on the pituitary right and mimic pre-flood pressure conditions! so tribes who head shaped may have de – evolved even slower than anyone else and not one demon or fallen angel had to be involved . and of course narcissistic men would have no other way to understand it than to scream ” OH run , hide your daughters it’s nephillims” or whatever fear causes fools to do when they are freaking out about everything they don’t , won’t and can’t understand. and prefer to instead go on a killing rampage !!

My friend introduced me to your work this past Thursday and I have been enamored with it ever since. He was teetering on atheism when your research stirred within him a newfound respect for the Bible, which led to him reading it more, which led to a renewal of his faith. However, since it is profound ideas you teach, the natural human reaction is to disagree (for you have presented evidence that goes against our previously held beliefs). In that vein I find myself simultaneously trying to prove you wrong while rooting for you to be right. I wish we could sit down and have a discussion. Anyways, this link seems to go against the presumption of your comment on dinosaur height/weight: http://www.dinosaurtheory.com/big_dinosaur.html and the square cube law (which I never heard of before looking it up this evening) seems very legit. What are your thoughts?

Dear Rob
Thank you for what you do, Your flat Earth work has opened up SO much of the bible to me 😀

I was wondering if there was a in depth BIBLE study that brought all of the lineages of giants as well as all the references to Sons of God, and angles being bound, just from, lets say the KJV….I love teh other books like Enoch and Jasher, but was looking for a bible only study